


The Swap

by cereal, gallifreyburning



Series: fic tennis [8]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: dystopian au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-30
Updated: 2014-08-30
Packaged: 2018-02-15 10:08:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2225049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cereal/pseuds/cereal, https://archiveofourown.org/users/gallifreyburning/pseuds/gallifreyburning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Play coy all you want, Doctor, but every bit of you is broken down and printed out right here in front of me, from your first memory to the chips you ate for lunch today.” Rose waves at her computer screen.</p><p>“It’s faulty, that. All those bits of data are meaningless without context.”</p><p>“Context like a leather jacket and a military haircut?” Rose retorts, more unnerved by his defiance than she cares to admit. Normally citizens who come up for review enter the medical booth in fear, gibbering and pleading and soiling themselves. They cry and promise never again to commit whatever infraction brought them to the review in the first place, but at this point it’s too late. A transfer is inevitable. Their new body is already waiting on the second gurney behind the curtain; their new personality is already programmed into the computer.</p><p>But this bloke, the Doctor, he’s not scared. He’s not crying and pleading for more time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

[gallifreyburning](http://gallifreyburning.tumblr.com/):

“Name.”

“The Doctor.”

“That isn’t your assigned name. It isn’t a name at all; it isn’t even your assigned profession. Try again.  _Name._ ”

“The Doctor.”

Rose frowns at the man in the medical exam booth, and he frowns back at her. He’s the one strapped to the upright gurney, but with those piercing blue eyes pinning her to her seat at the control panel, she might as well be the one up for personality review.

He’s a bit ridiculous, she thinks, cataloguing his odd features to calm her nerves: big nose, big ears, funny quirk to his vocal cords that makes him sound like he isn’t from London at all. Of course, he’s been in for personality review nine times – a record, Rose’s supervisor informed her when he handed her the case file this morning. With that many rewrites under this bloke’s belt, something probably got scrambled in transit.

“Fine,  _Doctor_. Citizenship number.”  

“Don’t have one.”

“Play coy all you want, but every bit of you is broken down and printed out right here in front of me, from your first memory to the chips you ate for lunch today.” Rose waves at her computer screen.

“It’s faulty, that. All those bits of data are meaningless without context.”

“Context like a leather jacket and a military haircut?” Rose retorts, more unnerved by his defiance than she cares to admit. Normally citizens who come up for review enter the medical booth in fear, gibbering and pleading and soiling themselves. They cry and promise never again to commit whatever infraction brought them to the review in the first place, but at this point it’s too late. A transfer is inevitable. Their new body is already waiting on the second gurney behind the curtain; their new personality is already programmed into the computer.

But this bloke, the Doctor, he’s not scared. He’s not crying and pleading for more time.

“Context like relationships. Children and grandchildren, friends and companions, lovers. The ebb and flow of an individual as he carves through the landscape of his days, moved by the wind and tide of those who help shape his path like boulders and bedrock.”

“You aren’t a bloody poet, you’re a janitor,” Rose snorts. “You don’t have children and grandchildren, it says right here in your file.”

“Not anymore,” the man replies, his gaze never wavering from her face. The bright lights feel hot, her lab coat stifling. “Your little file, it’s finite. Flawed.”

“Fine. Shall I tell you your citizenship number, then?”

“Suit yourself.”

“03262005,” Rose says.

“You don’t have to do this,” he replies.

Ah, here it comes: the sniveling. “Your crimes are well-documented, there’s no appeal.”

“You don’t have to live like this, I mean,” he says. “Pushing that button, day in and day out, making new people like shop window dummies. You can be different. Everything can be different.”

“Watch your tongue,” Rose hisses, casting her eyes toward the camera mounted in the corner of the medical booth.

“Not much more they can do to me, is there?” he replies, broad shoulders settling back against the upright medical table as though he’s easing into bed for a nap. “Go on then. Do your job, push your button. Fill your mindless days with sleep and food. Let it burn you up from the inside, until you’re hollowed out and nothing is left of Rose Tyler.”

“How did you –?”

“The technician said it, when he was strapping me down,” the Doctor replies. He sighs and closes his eyes. It’s the first time he hasn’t been staring at her since she came into the room. Her chest fills with air, a nice proper breath, and she feels almost dizzy.

“Go on, Rose Tyler,” he says, and he almost looks relaxed. “It’s all right. Do your job.”

“I don’t –”

“Go on.”

The light on the wall has gone from yellow to red – a signal from whoever’s behind the camera that this formality of an interview has gone on too long.

“I’m sorry,” Rose says, her hand hovering over the button labeled “INITIALIZE” on her control panel.

The man on the gurney opens his eyes again, his lips parting as though he’s about to say something else, but before he can a loud buzzing noise rattles through the speakers overhead. Rose jumps in surprise, her nerves stretched so tight she almost screams, and the button clicks under her hand.

With a whir and a snap, the medical machinery clicks into motion and the man on the gurney – the Doctor – is folded into a metal box. Light flashes through the seams, the banks of computers against the wall executing billions of calculations each microsecond, and there’s a rustling sound from the other side of the curtain.

The rewrite is complete.

The Doctor is a new man.

[allrightfine](http://allrightfine.tumblr.com/):

She’s seen this happen thousands of times —  _made_  it happen.

Sometimes it’s a miracle, old, deteriorating bodies swapped for something newer, a reinvigoration of life the government doesn’t necessarily sanction, but its hands are bound by its own laws.

Elderly abuse of the system is one of the few problems with society that Rose doesn’t think of as a problem at all — a few carefully placed deviant behaviors and life goes on anew, great-grandparents in virile young bodies, able to play with their families once more.

Sometimes it’s a vanity, the rich and famous with carefully crafted new bodies, paying off the government to make the switch while the people have no choice but to look the other way.

Sometimes, though, like now, it’s a travesty. There are only 13 chances at this — at  _life_  — and anytime someone cracks the double digits, like the Doctor has today — it’s almost always a death sentence. Just a few more missteps and they’ll be deemed an aberration and terminated entirely.

There’s a different ward for that, Rose hasn’t had to do it herself, but every time she makes the switch for someone like this, she feels the weight of that sentence bearing down on her.

It makes it — well, it doesn’t make it easy. And she’s had more than a few warnings, every time that light switches to red, it’s noted. And this time, she took so long, she waited so long, and she let him talk.

Before she can run the tally of her own infractions in her head, before she can even watch the Doctor awake in his new body, the door to the booth is swinging open.

Armed guards enter in a clatter of boots and she’s being lifted from her chair by her biceps.

“Re-write will commence immediately,” one says, and ice grips her heart.

Oh.

Oh, no.

Oh, god, her mother is going to be devastated.

It’s no use fighting it, she’ll be sedated if she does, and instead she follows along grimly to the body scan. If she behaves now, maybe someone will take mercy on her and reprint her body from the scan, instead of just filing it away.

Maybe she can be herself, but with new programming.

If Mickey’s working today, he might do it, he’s always been fond of this body — although, no, not so much, not any more.

And it’s her own fault.

She’s thrust into the room, electrodes placed high on her chest, as her uniform jacket is stripped off, leaving her only in her vest.

The guards exit the room and a voice over head — not Mickey’s — instructs her to wait for the scan, counting down from ten as she extends her arms.

She feels a look of defiance cross her face. They want her to beg, she knows, and she won’t do it. Instead, starting now, she’ll focus on keeping the things that make her  _her_. She thinks again of her mum, of the flat, of chips after school, and bright sunny skies.

She’ll make it through this scan, and she’ll walk, with her head held high, to the chamber for her new body.

The voice overhead booms out the countdown.

“ _Five_  —  _four_  —  _three_  —”

From somewhere in the darkness, a hand closes around her own, twining their fingers together.

A skinny man with wild brown hair meets her eye and pulls at her.

“Run,” he says. 

[gallifreyburning](http://gallifreyburning.tumblr.com/):

Rose is just punchy enough on adrenaline to do something she’d never contemplate in her normal life, under normal circumstances.

Normal would be if she was sitting on the other side of the medical booth, pushing buttons. Abnormal was being on the gurney, a place she swore she’d never end up. She’s complained about her life being boring, but  _this_  is just the sort of interesting she never wanted.

Rose grabs the electrode wires and rips them from her chest – it stings, much worse than pulling off a plaster. Her legs move, almost stumble as she half-leaps from the upright gurney, but the bloke holds her steady, pulls her along.

The technician shouts for the guards. The warning light on the wall blinks silently, a red blur as Rose is yanked by the hand around a bank of medical equipment and onto the floor.

“Go, go!” the bloke whispers urgently, pointing. The ventilation duct in the floor is a narrow square hole, the metal grate somehow unscrewed and flipped open. “Soft landing at the bottom, I promise.”

Rose looks down the sheer drop and then stares at him with wide eyes. “You mean you climbed up that thing?”

The door bangs open on the other side of the room, and guards pour in with sedation guns.

“Needs must,” the brown-haired bloke says with a shrug and grin. The sight isn’t reassuring. “Now in you go!”

He pushes her – later, he’ll claim it was a nudge and probably accidental, but she definitely felt his hands on her bum. Her elbow clips the edge of the duct as she topples in foot-first.

Rose’s scream echoes off of the metal ventilation shaft, and she feels like she’s falling forever – they were on the fiftieth floor, after all.  _Soft landing, soft landing, soft landing,_ the promise repeats in her head like a prayer as she keeps her arms and legs tucked in, trying to avoid clipping her elbow again, or breaking any appendages before she lands.

At a certain point, Rose isn’t falling anymore as much as she’s sliding, the narrow ventilation shaft now following a gentle curve. Up ahead is daylight, it’s the end of the tunnel – daylight that is very clearly filtering through a closed metal grate.

She braces just in time for her feet to impact, knees absorbing the hit. Her teeth rattle in her skull, but she doesn’t seem to have broken anything. That is, until the mad brown-haired bloke uses her as a landing pad, just like she used the metal grate.

He slides into her at astonishing speed, all spindly legs and arms, and knocks the wind right out of her. He spares her a glance, enough to make sure she isn’t seriously injured, before he folds over and crawls right on top of her prone body in the tiny square shaft, trying to reach the grate.

“This would be tons easier if you weren’t just laying here like a lump. A wiggling, useless lump. What do they call those? Quicksand? No, I’m thinking of custard.”

He’s got a long piece of metal in his hand, and it’s whirring like a child’s toy with low batteries. Rose recognizes it instantly.  “You’re mental,” she wheezes indignantly. “That’s a sonic probe from the medical lab.”

“It isn’t a probe,” the man snaps, waving the sonic device back and forth in front of the grate. “At least, not anymore. It’s a screwdriver.”

“They’ll reprogram you for theft, if they catch you. Probably add a charge of vandalism, for whatever you did to change that probe into a screwdriver.”

“That’ll be twice in one day, then,” he retorts. “Now be quiet, let me concentrate.”

Rose hadn’t noticed before – because there hadn’t been time, really, what with all the running for their lives and everything – but this man who’s currently smashed against her in this coffin-like vent, torso stretched across her thighs, he isn’t wearing much in the way of clothing. He’s only wearing his pants, in point of fact. She’s got a clear view of his arse, what with her head between his calves, and they’re rather snug, patient-issue pants. The kind that have “Toclafane Medical” embroidered around the waistband, the kind that an empty body would’ve been wearing as it waited to receive its new reprogrammed personality. 

"I’m the Doctor, by the way," he says, voice drifting back to her from the vicinity of her own feet. "It’s nice to see you again."

[allrightfine](http://allrightfine.tumblr.com/):

It should probably be surprising, running into the same bloke that got her into this whole mess. Only, he didn’t, not really, she’d have slipped again soon anyway — talked too long to a little old lady or a young boy that nicked a sweet or  _something_ , and she’d have been hauled away just the same. 

So, no, it’s not his fault. And, no, it’s not surprising. 

What  _is_  surprising is the feeling of the grate giving way beneath her feet, and she yelps as she and the Doctor clatter the few feet to the asphalt below. 

He pops back up to his feet like he’s spring-loaded, rubbing at his hair and then looking surprised at the movement. 

“Well, that’s a lot longer, isn’t it? Tell me, tell me right now, Rose Tyler, am I ginger?” 

She shakes her head, disarmed by the gravity with which he’d posed the question. 

“No, you’re just sort of…brown.”

“Aww, I so wanted to be ging— oh, I’m in my pants, aren’t I?”

Rose makes a show of looking at the sky, and not whatever’s lying underneath the front of the thin fabric at his crotch. There are some things about new bodies that a person should find out for themselves. 

“We’ll need to remedy that, then, won’t we?”

With a flourish, he produces the sonic probe —  _screwdriver_  — again, fiddling at it until it emits a much higher pitched whine. 

He casts a glance around the alley like he’s looking for something, head swiveling to his left and right until the air fills with a different sound entirely and he darts in the direction of it.

At the far end of the alleyway, something is materializing — something sort of…blue and square-ish. 

He crows proudly, stroking a hand at the wood of the —

Oh my god. 

It’s the police box. It’s the police box from Old Earth Park. 

“What? How? What did you do —? How is that here?” The questions are tumbling from her lips in rapid, half-formed succession.

“That’s — that’s from the park! You — ohhhhh, you have a teleport! Oh my god, it’s a teleport!” she says, realization dawning. “I always thought, you know, students.”

He stops the frankly concerning touching he’s doing to the box and turns to look at her.

“Students?”

She nods. “Yeah, you know, it would always disappear from the park. Sometimes for days, once it was gone a whole month.”

He laughs, “Ah, yeah, stuck on a little island in the ocean. Won’t be repeating  _that_  any time soon. Anyway — students?”

Her eyes widen, nothing this bloke says makes any sense, but she literally  _broke out of her re-write_ , so she’s not the picture of sanity either, and she continues. 

“So it goes away, I figured it was a student prank, it always comes back looking a little dingier, a little older, one time there was even an arrow stuck in — so…students.”

“Oh, you’re clever, Rose Tyler. But older?  _Dingier_? The TARDIS isn’t going to like that, no way.”

He’s turned away from her again, fiddling once more with the screwdriver, this time pointing it at the door handles.

“The  _TARDIS_?”

He whirs the screwdriver at the door and then tries the handle, but it doesn’t budge. “Yeah, TARDIS — Transport Across Relative Distances In Seconds.”

“ _Relative_  distances?”

Another fiddle with the screwdriver, another try on the door, and he’s answering her.

“Well, yeah. All distances are relative. If I tell you I can get from here to the end of this alley in seconds, that would hardly be impressive, you could walk there in that time, but halfway across the planet? In seconds? Now  _that’s_  impressive!”

“But teleports are  _illegal_. And — and dangerous.”

He looks at her pointedly. “So is running away from your re-write. But you’re right, maybe this is too dangerous. Maybe you should just forget me, Rose Tyler. Take that lift back upstairs and throw yourself on the mercy of the government. Goodness knows that always works out well.”

Something inside her rankles at that, not just because he’s right, but because he’d said it almost like that’s what he expects — her to run away. And she’s never been big on being told what to do. Not anymore. 

“No, I don’t think I will, ta. Show me how this old teleport of yours works.”

“You know, you keep calling her ‘old,’ she’s not going to like that. That’s probably why she won’t let me in. Bringing along a rude passenger and all. And anyway — how old are  _you_?”

Rose shrugs, trying to decide whether to lie. She settles on the truth. “Nineteen.”

“No, no, not this body, your  _actual_  age.”

She says it again. “Nineteen. Not all of us fly through the bodies like you, you nutter.”

He tries once more with the sonic, and this time the handle gives way, the Doctor tumbling through the door with the force of his effort. 

“Ooh,  _nutter_ ,” he says, from inside the box — the  _TARDIS_. “I think she liked that.”

His head pokes back out the doors. “What do you say, Rose Tyler, this isn’t just a local hopper. Anywhere on the planet, anywhere at all, where do you want to go first?”

[gallifreyburning](http://gallifreyburning.tumblr.com/):

~~~~~

Rose stares at him, and the back of his neck prickles with nerves. He’s had people travel with him before, but this is the first time he’s found someone on the inside – someone who knows the innerworkings of Toclafane Medical, down to the kind of tea they serve in the commissary.

The Doctor needs this woman. His life depends on whether she steps into his teleport machine. The fate of the world depends on it.

After a silence so long he swears it takes a decade off his life, she finally says, “Fine.”

She strolls to the TARDIS door and he moves aside to let her in. They’ve already been in close quarters, cramped together in that little venting duct, and she doesn’t balk at squeezing in beside him in the blue box.

“It’s so small,” she says, surveying the interior, from the warm glow of the one yellow light bulb overhead, all the way down the circuit and lever-covered walls. “I expected something … I dunno, posher, I suppose. Teleports are illegal and dangerous and high-tech, aren’t they? This looks like the inside of a broken toaster someone found in a scrap heap. Is this thing safe?”

“Safe as houses,” the Doctor says with a frown, reaching up to stroke the wall. “And don’t listen to her, old girl. You’re gorgeous.”

“So we can go anywhere?” Rose asks.

“Well, anywhere right after we stop for clothes,” the Doctor replies, trying not to stare at her practically sheer vest. It’s cold in the TARDIS. “Don’t want to get arrested for strolling around naked in Bogota.”

“Bogota?”

“Or Moscow, if you like,” the Doctor replies. “I know just the place to pick up some kit.”

A few switches flipped, a lever pulled and a toggle adjusted, and the small blue box begins to groan and quiver.

Rose’s eyes go wide and she reaches out to hold onto something – there are no handles, though, nothing but sensitive equipment that shouldn’t be tampered with in flight, or they might materialize at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. Before she can touch anything dangerous, the Doctor catches her hand with his own and folds his fingers with hers.

“Hold on,” he says, grinning. “I’ve got you.”

Rose’s fearful expression fades and she grins back at him. “Are you taking us to the women’s department at Henrik’s?”

“Nah, someplace better.”

The TARDIS shudders and lands with a  _thump._  Rose squeaks, her grip on his hand is so tight, he’s glad this trip isn’t any longer or his new fingers might not make it in working order.

“We’re here,” he says, reaching past her to open the door.

Outside is an enormous network of caves, full to the brim with the Doctor’s collection. He’s spent years accumulating everything, carefully catalogued and organized (well, mostly – sort of – he always meant to at least arrange it alphabetically, but he knows where to find things when he needs them, that’s all that matters). This particular room is the heart of his collection, all the most important bits of technology he needs to build his Machine.

“Oh my god,” Rose says, gobsmacked, as she steps into the main room. She’s impressed – of course she is, how could she not be? He’s so very impressive. She walks over to the nearest branching hallway, peers into the distance. “Oh my god, how far does this go?”

“Miles and miles,” the Doctor replies, chest puffed out, momentarily forgetting that he’s only wearing his pants.

“Oh my god, this is a  _secret lair_. A secret lair, like you’re some proper villain in a movie!” She rounds on him, hands on her hips. “Where the hell are we?”

His chest deflates, his hands come up defensively. “No! Definitely not a lair! Villainous or otherwise! We’re underneath Cardiff, and this is my home!”

“What sort of villain lives in a junk heap, though?”

“Oi!” He points to himself, gesturing to face he hasn’t even seen yet. “Not a villain.” He points to the heaps of technology around them. “Not junk.”

“I dunno, you’ve set the record for criminal personality re-writes. Plenty of rich old geezers fleece the system all the way to their thirteenth body, but you’ve managed to lead a life of crime and earn those re-writes all on your own.”

He doesn’t realize he’s pouting until Rose cracks a smile, her tongue caught between her teeth. “All right, I admit, even if you are a villain, this place is impressive.” Her smile widens as she surveys the room one more time. “Does one of these machines make clothes, or is there are wardrobe somewhere?”

[allrightfine](http://allrightfine.tumblr.com/):

Now here —  _here’s_  an opportunity to  _really_  show off, and he doesn’t know why — not yet — but he’s certainly feeling keen to show off for her. 

“Both! Well, I say both, but the fabric printer’s been stripped for parts. Still, nothing that can’t be righted with a little tinkering. How about you look through the wardrobe and if you can’t find anything, I’ll see what I can do.”

With that, he leads her out of the main area and into the wardrobe, watching as her eyes widen — just as expected. 

“This stuff — there’s so much of it. Where did you get all this?”

Her fingers are dancing across the racks and he feels the urge to preen, tuck his hands in his pockets, rock back on his heels, that sort of thing. Only he hasn’t got pockets, and he looks silly scrabbling at his pants.

Blimey, are those his hipbones? This body is even thinner than the last. Rose is looking at him expectantly and he wonders if she’s noticed, if she thinks he’s  _too_  skinny. Not that it matters, he’s just got a bit of a job for her, that’s all, nothing that requires her feelings on his body to be positive. Not that he’d  _complain_ , of course, just that —

Oh, she’d asked him something. 

“I just, ah, I picked it up here and there, you know how it goes.”

She plucks a thick, posh-looking coat from its hanger, the tags still dangling from the tag.

“Nicked it, more like.”

He looks aghast. “Hardly. That particular coat was given to me by a grateful bloke in the middle of Italy. Saved his farm from — oooh, a coat does sound brilliant though, doesn’t it? I think I have one around here from Janis Joplin’s great-great-great granddaughter. You’ve heard of Janis Joplin, right? What are they teaching you kids today in school?”

Rose is looking at him like he’s strutting around in his pants, which he is, and he quickly fumbles in the racks for the coat, grabbing a handful of clothes from nearby — including a new pair of pants — and shuffling off into a smaller room to change.

“You just grab whatever you’d like, Rose Tyler,” he calls back to her, and then quickly strips down. 

It takes a few tries, but he finally lands on a suit, a brown pinstriped thing with, most importantly, pockets. He tops it off with the coat, and spends a few minutes checking out everything in the mirror.

New teeth, those are always tough to get used to, some freckles, that hair, not bad all together. And the suit makes him look dashing. 

Brushing his hands down the sleeves a few times, he walks back to the wardrobe area. 

Rose is there, in a t-shirt and jeans, her bare feet on the ground of the cave, toes wiggling.

“You got any shoes?” she says, and then gestures to his own feet, which are also bare.

“Right, yes, shoes,” he says, studiously not paying attention to the tightness of the t-shirt, the tightness of her jeans — the tightness of his own suit, bloody hell, isn’t  _anything_  cut to be roomy anymore?

He leads her to the end of the room, the shelves of shoes he’s collected over too many years to count. 

“Trainers might be good, I think,” he says, grabbing a pair of plimsolls for himself.

“You’re gonna wear those with that suit?”

He shrugs. “Why not?”

She laughs softly, shaking her head at him. “Nothing, it’s just — my dad used to wear suits. One of the only holodisks I have of him, he’s got a suit on, he’s rehearsing for a presentation to the council. And he’s certainly not wearing  _trainers_.”

He brushes her off. “Well, we’ll have to bring him a pair, won’t we? Later, of course.”

She shakes her head again, sadder this time, as she pulls on a pair of trainers. “No, he’s — he’s not around. He…died.”

The Doctor feels something clench in his gut, great, look at him, blundering around, being rude. He’s probably already alienated the poor girl.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “Wasn’t there a transfer body? Or was he — you know? On number 13?”

“Only number one, actually,” she says. “There was an accident. By the time the council made a ruling on fault, he was gone.”

“What about a temporary body? Rubbish things, those are, but could’ve —”

Oh, god, he’s being  _really_  rude.

“Yeah, but those are expensive, aren’t they? We couldn’t afford one, and the council wouldn’t grant it during the trial. So he died.”

Without thinking, he blurts out his next question. “So it was sort of the government’s fault then?”

She nods, scuffing the toe of her trainer against the dirt. “Yeah.”

And there it is — she’s got a reason to help him. She just doesn’t know it yet. 

[gallifreyburning](http://gallifreyburning.tumblr.com/):

“Why did you do it? Why did you find me, rescue me from my first personality rewrite? Especially since I was the one who – I was responsible for – for your last – um –” Rose’s gaze drops to the floor, as though she’s afraid of something she might read in his expression. She’s practically digging a secondary tunnel system with the toe of her trainer now, grinding it into the dirt.

“It was your eyes,” he replies quietly. She looks at him again, and he doesn’t smile at her, doesn’t move to reassure her in any way. There is only his voice, soft and full of conviction. “The way you looked at me, you  _saw_ me. Not just as a defective personality, but as a person. I’ve been up for personality rewrite so many times, but I’ve never met anyone in that facility who looked at me that way. You had second thoughts, even then, about what you were doing. You knew what was right, and you wanted to do the right thing. How could I let them erase that from your personality, Rose? How could I let them change that part of you, when it’s so beautiful, it makes you glow from the inside out?”

She isn’t breathing. She’s staring at him in utter stillness, as though she’s been paralyzed. For a split second the Doctor worries that he might have left a hypo-sedation device laying around, that maybe she stepped on it and she’s in a medically-induced rigor.

When she inhales again, it’s a ragged sound. “Oh,” she finally says.

He crams his hands into his pockets. “I figure you might not have pushed that button, if the alarm buzzer hadn’t startled you.”

“I – I wasn’t – yeah.” She’s trembling almost imperceptibly, fists balled at her thighs. “I’m sorry.”

“You said that, before,” he replies with a shrug. “Back when I had bigger ears.”

“They were nice, those ears,” she says.

He snorts. “Did you have a hand in picking out this body? It’s a bit prettier than my last one.”

“It is, isn’t it?” Rose replies, apparently without thinking. Her face goes from pale white to pink in record time. “I mean – no, I didn’t pick anything. Sometimes the rewrite techs want to be hands-on that way, but I was never comfortable with it, I just let the guys down in the body farm department send up whatever. Luck of the draw.”

“If you say so,” he says, lifting an eyebrow. Her cheeks go from pink to crimson.

“Most people, after a personality rewrite, they spend at least forty-eight hours in recovery. They have temporary amnesia, among other things. How did you go through the process so well? Less than a few hours out, and you don’t have any aftereffects.”

“I’ve dealt with amnesia after a few rewrites,” the Doctor admits. “The trick is concentration during the transition. On who you are, the things that don’t change from body to body. Your memories, your experiences.” He turns around and saunters out of the wardrobe, calling back over his shoulder, “We can’t stand around jabbering all day, Rose. There are places to visit, people to see!”


	2. Chapter 2

It’s almost reflexive, the way Rose moves to follow this strange bloke back into his boxy little teleport. It’s only when she catches sight of her work uniform, still crumpled in a bright white pile on the dirt that she realizes she needs to tell her mum…something.

She needs to tell her mum something, reassure her that she’s OK, at least. 

“I have to send word to my mum, Doctor,” she says, raising her voice a little so he can hear her where he’s already inside the TARDIS, flipping switches and fiddling with things. 

His head pops back out the doors, hair askew, glasses on the end of his nose and, oh, aren’t those — well, they’re a bit nice, aren’t they?

“Your mum?”  
Rose nods. “Yeah, she’ll be worried. Mickey’s already probably told her I took off, she’s probably beside herself.”

“Mick-Mick-Mickey — wait, who’s he again?”

She reaches down to the pile of her clothes, picking up her vest and folding it neatly, just to have something to do with her hands.

“He’s my boyfriend —”

The Doctor’s face twists into something she can’t decipher. Something probably he can’t even decipher yet, body as new as it is. 

“— well, ex-boyfriend now.” The Doctor’s face rights itself, and she’s still no closer to decoding his expression. “Anyway, he works in biometrics. That’s his department, where they do the record scans. Someone will have told him I ran, and he’ll have told my mum. I have to tell her I’m —“

“Tell her you’re what?”

“Well, that I’m running off with a criminal with a teleport, to parts unknown, of course.”

The Doctor looks horrified and she laughs.

“I’m just kidding,” she says. “I just need to tell her I’m all right, OK?”

He looks wary, but finally nods, pushing himself back out of the TARDIS and moving over to a small console that seems to be built into the wall of the cave.

“It’s too dangerous to call her live, they can track those feeds in under three seconds now. But you can record something. We’ll transmit from Poland, and then hop somewhere else. Brilliant people, Poland’s got. Couple of lads out there, including a ginger one, built this treehouse, it’s practically chaos, can’t unscramble a thing from it. You want to talk about mums, now there’s a mum — here —”

Grabbing her by the hand, he tugs her in front of the console, pointing at a small red light. “When that comes on, say what you need to say. Try and keep it under 15 seconds, the less information we give them, the better.”

Rose snatches her hand back. “That them you’re talking about is my mum, and I’ll take all the time I like, thanks.”

The Doctor has the gall to smirk at her and she can tell he wants to say something else, but before he can the red light light comes on and she’s waving to the camera.

“Um. Hi, Mum.”

gallifreyburning:

The words that spill out come without thought. A quick mumbled message about going traveling for a while, that Jackie shouldn’t believe anything anyone might say about her (especially her former employer or the government), Rose loves her and everything’s fine.

The one thought Rose does have, even while she’s recording those platitudes, is that life will be difficult for Jackie when she’s gone. Not only because Jackie will be alone, but also because the government probably won’t believe Jackie’s claims of ignorance, when it comes to the location of her daughter.

So at the end she says, “And Mum, when the men come knocking and ask where I am, show them this message. Give it to them as proof that you don’t know. Let them trace it. And know that, no matter what else, I’m safe.”

Rose looks away from the camera, nods at the Doctor, and he flips a switch.

“Sent.”

“Thanks.”

“And now, Rose Tyler, where do you want to go? How does Hawaii sound?” The Doctor’s already bouncing away, into the TARDIS, as though she’s agreed.

She follows him anyway. “I thought Hawaii was uninhabitable after the Red Disaster and the American Apocalypse in the 1980s. Isn’t the radiation still at lethal levels on that side of the globe?”

“Now who on earth told you that?” the Doctor asks, eyebrows arched as he glances at her sideways.

“The government.” She steps into the TARDIS. “Oh. Right.”

He reaches past her to close the teleport doors. The machine makes a grinding, groaning noise, and Rose reaches out to hold onto the Doctor’s arm as he flips switches and sets coordinates. A second later, the box trembles and lurches into motion.

When they open the doors, they find themselves perched on a hillside and surrounded by tropical forest. Wild bird calls fill the sunlit air, and dark storm clouds hover on the horizon.

“Practically a deserted paradise,” the Doctor says, shooing her out ahead of himself. He steps over to a tree, reaches up, and plucks a ripe mango. “Let’s make a picnic, shall we?” Tossing the mango to her without looking – she catches it, just barely – he sets off up the hill, like he knows exactly where he’s going.

Rose feels like she’s standing on the edge of a cliff about to jump off into the unknown. She hasn’t felt like this since she was four and a half years old, only a few months after her dad died. Jackie disappeared for a week, taken away for her second personality rewrite. There wasn’t enough food in the flat, and Rose walked ten blocks all alone to get to Mickey’s Gran’s place. It was terrifying and terribly thrilling, dangerous and exciting, especially once she was sitting comfortably in Mickey’s Gran’s den, eating biscuits and telling the kindly old woman about her adventure. She’d stayed there until Jackie came back, wearing a new body and sporting a less mouthy personality. (That only lasted a few years, though; the mouthiness always seemed to be a recurrent problem, no matter how many rewrite techs took a crack at reprogramming Jackie Tyler.)

TARDIS door slamming behind her, Rose dashes after the Doctor. He tosses another mango over his shoulder, and she reaches out to snag it before it splats on the ground. Ahead of them, at the top of the small mountain, are twin silver domes.

“What’s that?” Rose pants when she catches up to him. They’re passing under a tall tree topped with palm fronds; the Doctor leans down to scoop up a round fruit from the ground beneath it.

"Papaya!" he replies in delight, grinning from ear to ear. 

"No, I meant that,” Rose says, nodding toward the twin metal domes.

“Keck Observatory,” the Doctor replies, tucking the papaya into his elbow. “A big old telescope. The biggest still in existence, even if it’s been abandoned for half a century. C’mon, I’ve got something wonderful to show you.”

allrightfine:

Another ten minutes of hiking and the Doctor settles them in a clearing, spreading out his new (old) coat as a makeshift picnic blanket. 

They eat fruit and drink from a stream and it’s unlike anything Rose has ever experienced. She doesn’t even know the nutritional value of this fruit — not in anything more than an abstract way, at least. Back home, it’s all carefully labelled and mandated, regular health checks in school, everything designed to fulfill the nutritional rhombus they’d learned as kids. 

There are birds overhead unlike any she’s ever seen before, too — everything, this entire experience is so new, and as the Doctor licks mango juice from his fingers, she feels grateful.

Even if this is it, if she’s hauled back home and run through a re-write now, she’ll hang on to these memories. 

“Thank you,” she says. “It’s wonderful.”

The Doctor plucks his thumb from his mouth. “Oh, no, Rose Tyler, this isn’t it. This is just an appetizer.”

And with that, he’s pushing himself to stand, tugging Rose by her hand and grabbing his coat. He swings it back on with a flourish and then takes her hand again, leading her back through the trees.

An hour more of hiking — an hour full of getting-to-know-you games and what she might call flirting if the Doctor seemed anything like a regular bloke — and they’re emerging onto a road. 

In front of her black asphalt stretches as far as the eye can see, and the Doctor looks both directions before setting them off to their left. 

They’re flanked on either side by the greenness of the tropics, but as they walk, the trees thin out, until they’re walking through large cattle pastures, rolling hills topped by blue skies and puffy white clouds.

As they reach the crest of a large hill, a small town is visible directly in front of them, and it’s so unexpected that Rose blinks a few times, waiting for it to disappear.

It stays though, right in front of her eyes, and the Doctor walks them into it. There are abandoned buildings, little shops and restaurants, a giant fading yellow ‘M’ atop a pole in front of one of them.

She’s torn between wanting to ask a million questions, and wanting to stay quiet and take it all in. He’s walked them right up to a building labelled as a school, and then he’s dropping her hand, darting off around the side of the building so she has to run to keep up with him.

When she finds him again, he’s sitting on a swing, chain link clutched in either of his hands as his legs dangle and skitter across the ground, propelling him forward and back. 

She laughs, walking closer to him and searching the ground near the swing set for the historical marker. 

“What are you looking for?” he says, pushing himself higher. 

“The plaque. When’s this from? What’s it a monument to? Our Old Earth Park has loads of them.”

The Doctor laughs. “Rose, this isn’t an Old Earth Park, or, well, it is, but it’s a real one, from when the Earth was…older.”

gallifreyburning:

Rose laughs right back at him. “What do you mean, older? Aren’t we, by definition, at the oldest point in Earth’s history right this very second?”

Still grinning, he shrugs. “Not necessarily.”

“You’re barmy.”

“Probably.” He hops off of the swing. “C’mon, it’s almost dark, and we’re almost there.”

The rest of the hike up the mountain to the twin metal domes doesn’t take long. They arrive just after sunset, with just enough light left to expose how thoroughly the walls are rusted, the door hanging off its hinges. Vines and grass have sprung up from the concrete surrounding the observatory, slithering up the sides of the building.

The Doctor pauses just long enough to grab her hand, fingers threading together with a reassuring squeeze, before he leads her into the building. Not only does he navigate the interior of the observatory with ease, she also spots a leather jacket identical to the one he was wearing when he was brought into Toclafane for his last personality rewrite. It’s hanging off a railing right next to a pallet and a load of jerry-rigged machinery; he’s obviously been staying here on and off for a while.

“Do you know what an observatory is, Rose?” he asks, dropping her hand as they reach the bank of computers.

“Just because I didn’t get my A-levels doesn’t mean I’m stupid,” she retorts. “I studied history in school.”

“Right, right, sorry,” he says, glancing at her sideways. His fingers fly across the three keyboards – Rose has never seen a keyboard in person before, only pictures in books. She watches with interest as the screens respond, flickering as he inputs data. “Looking at the stars is like time-traveling, viewing right into the past. The distances are so vast, the light travels so slowly, we see things that happened thousands to millions of years ago.”

“I’m following,” she says at his inquiring glance. “Still not sure what we’re doing here, though.”

“I’m getting to that.” A few more keystrokes, and the overhead lights cut out and a projector flickers on, momentarily blinding before it resolves into a field of stars. Squinting, Rose turns around to stare at the wall behind herself, at the numberless points of color spread across it like paint splattered on black tarmac.

Rose doesn’t realize she’s made a noise until the Doctor replies, “It is spectacular, isn’t it? I’ve spent a good number of years studying this particular area of space, because it’s different than the rest of the universe. The light coming from this area, it’s older than the light coming from everywhere else. I’ve run it through every filter and calculation I can think of – every one that exists, I’m brilliant at this sort of thing – and every single time I come to the same conclusion. This piece of vacuum, these points of light, they aren’t from our reality. They’re from another universe altogether.”

Rose turns around to squint at him. “Pull the other one.”

“There’s a hole in the fabric of reality, and it’s located right here.” The Doctor gestures to the star-covered wall. “This is a window to another universe, in all probability a parallel universe. One practically identical to our own, but older. And from what I can tell, very, very different.”

“What do you mean, from what you can tell? How can you tell anything, except that these stars are glowing on a separate … wavelength, or whatever?”

“Light isn’t the only thing coming through that window in space-time, Rose. There are broadcasts – radio, television, information in all forms,” he replies.

allrightfine:

~~~~~

Rose still looks dubious, but it’s fine, that’s fine, he’s prepared for that. This isn’t his first rodeo, as it were. He’s traveled with plenty of people, plenty of skeptical people, and he’s convinced most — if not all — of them see he’s not a complete lunatic. Or, well, at least not about this. 

None of them are here now, and none of them had an in at Toclafane, like Rose does, so he takes a moment and a long, deep breath, before considering his next move. 

She’s smart, clever — she’s said as much, and he’s seen it, too, but sometimes it’s the littlest things that strike the biggest chord. He can give her science for days, but without something that impacts her, fundamentally changes something she’s thought of her entire life as fact, it’s all going to be one step removed.

“No, really,” he finally says, in the face of her incredulous look. “Look, what’s your favorite program? On the telly? What’s something you know inside and out, seen every episode, that sort of thing?”

Rose squints at him in the dim light, considering. “Um. ‘By the Light of the Asteroid,’ I guess.”

He laughs at that. “What, really?”

She squares her shoulders. “Yeah, really. My mum’s a fan, I sort of — grew up with it, I guess.”

“And you’re sure you’ve seen every episode?”

She nods. 

“And you remember all the story lines, all the things that happened?”

She nods again and he can tell she’s starting to get irritated. “Yeah, I have. Where’s this going?” Her eyes keep flicking back to the projection, and maybe this will be easier than he thought.

“It’s going, Rose Tyler, exactly…here.” With a few keystrokes, he’s searching his archives, every single thing he’s ever been able to grab from the other universe. There’s an ‘Asteroid’ clip in there somewhere, and he takes a few moments, trying to remember what he’s named it. 

Every body he’s had seems to prefer different naming conventions, and he can only hope he saved this one in a body where he had some common sense. 

“Exactly….where?” she teases when he’s still pecking at the computer a minute later. 

Ah, but there it is — file name ‘btlota,’ an acronym, and with a few more clicks, he’s replaced the star field with the show’s opening credits. 

It’s grainy, static lines cutting through at random intervals, but he can tell Rose recognizes it when she starts tapping her foot along to the theme tune. 

A few arrows over and he’s fast-forwarding, skipping right to a scene with Joofy taking her kids to school.

Rose’s eyes widen, staring at the projection. “But — but — but Joofy never had kids, she’s on husband number five. Mum always said they had to do it that way, for ratings. No one wants to see that, not with the population restrictions in place. Don’t want to see what you probably can’t have, you know?”

He laughs. “You’re telling me.”

“And this — that actor’s her first husband, he’s not even in that body anymore, he probably doesn’t even remember that body.”

“Yes, yep, good, what else?”

“Well, they had to have filmed it before, didn’t they? Only — she’s got that tattoo, Joofy just got that tattoo.”

He can see her grappling with logic, with all the reasons she can’t be seeing what she’s seeing. 

“I mean, we have the technology to put it in, obviously, I just — what is this? Why would they do this? Film this?”

With a few more keystrokes, he’s turning the projector off and bringing the lights in the observatory back up. 

“They filmed this because this is how the show aired for them. It’s a parallel universe, Rose. I’m serious.”

gallifreyburning:

From outside the observatory, thunder cracks in the distance. The building rattles.

Rose shivers and folds her arms with a frown. “You’re having me on. Fine, Doctor, I admit you’re clever. You hacked the broadcaster’s unaired episodes, altered some footage, I don’t know – you’re too clever for me, by half.”

“No lies,” the Doctor says, hands out to his sides in a gesture of openness. “No trickery. There are thousands of files on this server, all of them documenting life in that alternate universe. Soap operas, news broadcasts, police scanners, the works. And you know what, Rose? It’s better there. Everything is better – freedom of thought and expression, no personality rewrites. The government exists to serve the people, not control them. The Red Disaster never happened. No nuclear war, no genetic mutations and extermination camps, no nuclear winter and food rations. Five billion people – none of them ever died, like they did here. That’s the way the universe is supposed to be, Rose. I believe we’re on the wrong side of this reality window – the way we live, this crippled and malformed world, it was never supposed to exist.”

“You’re saying that us being here, it’s … wrong?” The look on Rose’s face isn’t just skeptical; she’s upset. “We’re wrong?”

“I’m saying the world as we know it, it isn’t how things are supposed to be.” He pauses just long enough to pull in a breath. “Here, let me cue up a news segment. They have broadcasts about kittens, Rose. Kittens! Years ago, people were allowed to keep real, live creatures in their houses, instead of the government-approved automaton companions they sell in the stores nowadays!” The lights pop off again, the projector starts up, images flickering across the wall and sound pouring out of the tinny speaker embedded in one of the ancient computer units. It’s full of visual and aural static. “Hold on, just have to get through this commercial –”

“Stop. Stop!” Rose practically shrieks. She stares at the broadcast with a hand over her mouth. There’s a man’s image there, he’s selling a beverage in a bottle, One hand holds his product, the other is around a woman’s shoulders, and the two of them wink at the camera and simultaneously promise, “Trust me on this!”

Shocked at her vehemence, the Doctor fumbles for the pause button. “What, what’s the matter?”

“That’s my dad,” Rose replies, her voice trembling. She points at the woman beside him. “And that’s my mum.”

“Really?” the Doctor squeaks. What are the astronomically unlikely odds? “Those are your parents?” He can see a resemblance between them and Rose – she’s got her dad’s nose, her mum’s chin and build.

“That was – that was what my dad looked like the last time I saw him,” Rose says. She steps over to the wall, reaches up to touch the flat image, fingers ghosting across her dead father’s face. “And that’s what my mum looked like, before her third personality rewrite.”

“This product is in tons of commercials,” the Doctor says. “It’s very popular, apparently.”

“My dad’s alive,” Rose whispers. “He’s alive, and he’s a soda shill.” She whirls around to face the Doctor, he light of the projection reflecting off of the tears on her cheeks. “What does that mean? What’s the point of this information you’ve collected and stored on your servers? My dad’s dead, but he isn’t supposed to be? What good is any of this?”

Thunder cracks again, the building shudders, and rain begins to patter on the metal dome overhead.

allrightfine:

He only notices he’s pulling at his hair when a slight flicker of pain radiates across his scalp.

“What good is it? Rose, what good isn’t it? This is proof! Proof that we’re not meant to live like this, proof that things can be better — we can be better, if only we lived in a world where we’re allowed to.”

Rose looks offended, she looks angry — a streak of lightning making the room unnaturally bright, making her expression all the more apparent.

“I don’t understand why you would show me all this, I don’t much fancy window shopping, Doctor. We could be better, we could have a bigger flat, my dad could still be alive in some other bloody parallel universe. But could doesn’t mean anything, it doesn’t do me any good.”

The rain is coming down hard now, striking the dome in a steady, unrelenting torrent, and the Doctor fights to keep his mood from darkening to match it.

“It could do you good, Rose. We could fix it, I just — I need your help.”

Before Rose can respond, the panel reinforcement around one of the telescopes gives way, crashing next to them in a loud, wet clatter. 

Rose yelps, jumping out of the way, propelling herself and him toward a dry corner of the observatory. 

“Right, well, you can tell me about all that later, let’s shelve for it a minute, yeah?” she’s still crackling with emotion, and he can she means what she says — this isn’t over. “Right now, I want to get out of this mess. Use the little screwdriver thing. Bring your teleport.”

He reaches into his jacket on reflex, pulling his hand back ruefully.

“Well, I — I can’t. The remote function, it’s sort of a new one. It’s only for short range, and we left that somewhere back around — oh…the playground?”

She huffs at him. “What, so we’re stuck here?”

He nods. “Unless you fancy legging it several miles in the rain?”

She shakes her head, slumping back against the wall and tipping her head back to stare at the sky. “No. Thanks, though.” 

He joins her on the wall, watching the rain cascade in through the opening around the telescope and the watch it fall for a few minutes before he notices her shivering next to him.

Moving to take his coat off, he remembers the leather jacket he’d left here, and he darts off, grabbing and shaking it out before handing it to her. 

“Sorry,” he mumbles, sinking back against the wall, and when she takes the jacket, her face softens.

“It’s fine — it’s…fine. It’s good. I can’t remember the last time I was in the rain for this long. It’s sort of nice.”

He sees an opening and pushes back off the wall to stand in the rain. There’s an area where it’s not coming straight down, it’s deflected a little, a lighter shower than what’s raging outside and he laughs.

“See? See? This is what could be, just enjoying life as it happens. Rolling with the punches, instead of letting the government dole them out.”

She stares at him like he’s a nutter, but there’s a fondness to it, and he takes a chance, extending his hand to her.

“Come on, Rose Tyler, stand in the rain with me.”

“You’re mad.”

“Oh yes.”

And with that, she moves to join him, standing in the rain and laughing. 

gallifreyburning:

The two of them end up soaked to the skin. The rain doesn’t stop, even after they’ve had their fill of dancing in it.

The Doctor has been visiting this observatory for years, and he’s occasionally left spare sets of clothes over long weekends. He and Rose face opposite directions as they strip out of their wet gear; he pulls on a pair of grey trousers and a green velvet coat, while Rose wiggles into his old polka-dot-and-stripe fiasco. He can hear her fussing over the fit of the trousers and sighing over the two buttons clinging to the threadbare jacket. He hasn’t worn that outfit since four rewrites ago, when Toclafane Medical tossed him out onto the street with a moderate case of amnesia.

Daring a quick glance over his shoulder, he catches sight of Rose’s pale back as she pulls the coat up over her torso. She’s got a mole on her shoulder, and another near the small of her back. He never wore the outfit as well as she does – she makes it look fashionable, the riot of colors hugging the curves of her hips, the coat loosely fastened over her bare chest, her hair dripping and her cheeks flushed.

She catches him looking.

“This is hideous,” she says, fiddling the top button with a wrinkled nose and tongue stuck out in his direction.

He turns around completely, wishing for a shirt under his velvet jacket because the wind is blowing steadily into the structure. It’s just cool enough to make him shiver. Legs folding like a stork, he plops down onto the small pallet and unfolds onto his back. Tucking his hands behind his head, he surveys her. It isn’t inappropriate to stare if Rose is the one doing a twirl to show off the yellow stripes over her bum, right?

“It was the height of fashion in Shanghai a few years ago, I’ll have you know.”

She finishes hanging her jeans and shirt over the nearest dry railing, just beside his pinstriped suit. Then she eases down beside him on the pallet, using his bicep as a pillow, as though it’s the most natural thing in the world. She lets out a prodigious yawn. “Liar.”

“I nicked it from a clown school after my sixth personality rewrite,” he admits.

“I knew it, you’re a carney. Everything makes sense now.” Rose closes her eyes and grins, pulling in a relaxed breath. The plunging neckline of the jacket gaps just enough to make the Doctor’s bare toes curl; he forces his eyes away from her cleavage, fixing them on the domed ceiling instead. The curved architecture only aggravates his wandering thoughts.

He doesn’t know what sort of new body was awaiting Rose Tyler’s reprogrammed personality in that Toclafane medical bay, but he’s certain it couldn’t be more perfect than the one she was born with.

“I feel like I’ve been away from home for years,” she sighs, not unhappily.

“It’s been a busy day,” he agrees.

“The maddest day of my life.”

“Tomorrow will be madder.”

“Promises, promises.” 

He opens his mouth to reply — there’s so much more he needs to tell her about his plans, about her part in them, about how essential she is to everything — but as if on cue, she digs her elbow into his ribs and murmurs, “Shh. Madness tomorrow. After we rest.”

He clicks his teeth closed, and they lie in comfortable silence until the rain lulls them to sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

When Rose wakes, it’s to the feel of something hard beneath her head, and something soft and hairy beneath her hand. 

Her fingers curl on reflex, looking for purchase, and the soft, hairy thing under her palm sucks in a breath. She snaps her eyes open, and she’s greeted by the sight of green velvet. 

Oh, right, the Doctor. The rain. The wardrobe change. The mental, up-ended state of her life.  
She focuses her eyes further, swimming back to coherency. She’s stretched out on her stomach, one arm flung to the side so her hand rests in the gap on the Doctor’s coat. He’s lying on his back, one arm twisted awkwardly beneath his head, the other pinned to his side as hers stretches over it. 

Her muscles ache in ways that are much less pleasant than the last time she woke up next to a man, but she can’t bring herself to mind. Instead she curls her free hand underneath her body, propping herself up on her forearm to look at the Doctor.

She leaves her hand on his chest and he raises his head to peer at it. 

“This is new,” he says, arching an eyebrow.

“We just met yesterday, Doctor, everything is new.”

He pulls at the lapel of his coat, making it gap further. “Well, yes, but this is also new for this body. You could be inches — inches! — away from some dangerous erogenous zone and neither of us would even know.”

With a bit of a smirk, she slips her hand a few inches to the side, her pinky finger just edging over a nipple. 

“Well? Anything?”

He laughs, pushing himself up. “Nah, tickled a bit. Let’s put a pin in it though, once we save the world, might come back and try a little harder, yeah?”

A wave of heat blankets Rose’s skin, and where just a moment ago, it may have been the beginnings of arousal, now it’s irritation. They’d had such a good night, the rain, and the goofy outfits, and now he’s right back at it, banging on about this parallel universe stuff again. 

She shoves herself up to her knees and then stands, waving off the Doctor’s extended hand, but not missing the way his eyes dart down to her chest, the material of her coat pulling tight across her breasts as she stretches. 

The heat in her veins tips back toward arousal, just a little bit, but it’s enough to want to give him a chance. What’s wrong with having a little bit of an adventure with the handsome drifter that broke her out of a personality re-write? 

Well, what’s wrong outside of the tens of laws she’s breaking, at least.

“All right, Doctor, sure, let’s save the world,” she says, and he grins brightly. “But I’m not doing it in this.”

He nods and grabs his suit from where it’s slung over the railing, dry now, and then he’s scampering off behind a terminal to change. She moves slowly, rolling her neck and feeling the satisfying pop-pop-pop of the joints, to grab her own clothes.

There’s a small striped piece of cotton still on the railing and she moves for it, trying to remember if her socks had been striped when she realizes what it is — it’s pants. It’s the Doctor’s pants. 

“Doctor?” 

A small, dull thud echoes behind the terminal and then the Doctor’s head is peering around it. “Yeah?”

“Your, um — ” she pinches the elastic waistband behind her thumb and index fingers. “ — ooh, boxer briefs.”

He darts out from the behind terminal, clutching his trousers in front of him to protect his modesty.

“Thanks,” he says, ducking back behind the terminal, “was just looking for those.”

Rose dresses quickly and the Doctor joins her a moment later, grabbing her hand and leading her out of the observatory. The rain has completely cleared, there’s not even a cloud in the sky, and they walk in the sun back the way they came.

gallifreyburning:

The Doctor’s gob doesn’t stop the entire stroll to the TARDIS, spewing technical details Rose isn’t terribly concerned about.

The important parts she does glean, however, boil down to the fact that the man in charge of Toclafane Inc. – the man standing behind the seat of power of the United World Republics, the man who has a monopoly on everything from personality rewrite tech to mandatory prepackaged meal substitutes – he’s responsible for the state the Earth is in. He created a machine that poked a hole between realities so he could reach into an alternate universe, one where he was practically omnipotent (with a heaping side dish of nuclear war and totalitarian power structures), and pull that alternate reality into this one.

“He flipped reality just like you’d turn a pillow case inside-out,” the Doctor says, waving his hands excitedly. “His machine reached through and – zip! – now here we are, stuck in a world chock full of Toclafane-produced dinner kits and completely lacking in kittens!”

“So we have to destroy his machine,” Rose says. The Doctor opens the TARDIS door for her and they step inside together.

Toggling switches and rotating dials as he talks, the Doctor continues, “Not destroy it, Rose. Modify it. It was there the entire time you were working at Toclafane Medical. He keeps it in a secret sub-basement of the building, underneath the body farm. Lucky for us, I’m cleverer than the man behind Toclafane, and I’ve figured out a way to reverse the polarity of his device, and flip our universe right-side out again.”

“Flip us into the proper reality, where my dad’s alive, my family’s still together, and we’re rich?”

The TARDIS grinds and trembles as it dematerializes. “That will be a side effect, yes.”

Rose frowns. Only her third teleport trip, and she’s already got the hang of it, keeping her balance like she’s riding a skateboard. She doesn’t reach out to the Doctor to steady herself. “And you? Where are you, in this other reality?”

The Doctor shrugs. “Not sure. Haven’t worked that out. I could be anywhere, really.”

“Hold on, if my dad is dead in this reality, but alive in the proper one – does that mean the opposite could be true, someone could be alive in this reality, but dead in the proper one?”

“Really, Rose,” the Doctor says with an exasperated sigh, not looking at her. His long fingers dance across the teleport controls instead, touching without actually adjusting, all motion and no purpose. “Now you’re just being morbid.”

“Morbid? I’m being practical! And will we remember any of this?” Rose gestures vaguely, not sure if she’s indicating the TARDIS, or whatever’s happening between the Doctor and herself (cuddling? plotting? cahoots?), or the general sensation of daily life in a war-ravaged, Toclafane-run totalitarian world.

“Haven’t worked that out yet, either.” The Doctor still doesn’t look at her when he says it. He throws open the TARDIS door practically before they’ve landed, stepping out into his subterranean Cardiff lair. “C’mon, we need a big breakfast. Can’t commit reality-altering industrial sabotage on an empty stomach, can we? Plus, it’s time we discussed everything you know about Toclafane Medical’s daily operations, and the Toclafane building itself.”

allrightfine:

~~~~~

It takes some experimentation, but the Doctor is finally able to pin down this body’s breakfast habits. Slices of bread slathered with every kind of jam he has, and three different kinds of marmalade, litter the breakfast table. 

Together with sausages, soft-boiled eggs, some bananas, and a large glass of orange juice, he’s just about earned himself a full stomach, and an incredulous look from Rose.

“What?” he says around the finger he’s licking clean.

She laughs. “You better hope the metabolism on that body is exceptional.”

“Nah,” he says, drawing the word out. “All the running I get up to? I’ll be fine. Now, Rose Tyler, I need you to tell me where I’ll be doing that running. Here —”

He fumbles for a piece of paper and a marker, tipping back on his chair to reach the counter before handing them to Rose.

“ — can you draw? Give me the schematics of the building as you know it.”

Rose sets to work, munching on a piece of toast with her free hand, stopping periodically to brush crumbs from the paper.

It takes a full ten minutes, and a few additions at the last moment, but then she’s turning the paper around to face him.

“This is everything I know,” she says. “I put question marks for the areas I know are there, but don’t know what they’re for, and I put these wavy lines for areas that should be there, based on the structure of the building, but that I’ve never seen anybody go to.”

He pours over the drawing, fumbling for his glasses and slipping them on.

“See, this is sort of what I thought,” he says, pointing at the squiggles on the bottom of the drawing. “And these squiggles up at the very top here, that’d be used for transmission. 

“This question mark —” he points at a space that takes up the entire second-from-the-top level. “— what can you tell me about it?”

Rose shrugs. “Not much, really. Was only up there on accident once, the lifts, they’ve got this express override function. All the higher-ups have keys and they can override whatever you’ve punched in already. I was alone once, heading to the break room, and the lift just…went. All the way to nearly the top. When it opened, there was a bloke with a goatee — he didn’t look too happy to see me — and the hall behind him was very bright, like blindingly bright, and very loud.”

“Do you know who he was?”

She shakes her head. “Not really, all those higher-ups, the ones with the lift keys, they change bodies sometimes, and there’s never an announcement or anything, so we don’t always know who’s who. There was a rumor, right before I left, that the main bloke, he’d changed bodies, and then put his entire team in identical ones, so they all look the same.”

“Really? And what did the rumors say about that? Was he tall, short, young, old…handsome?” he adds, with an eyebrow waggle.

With a laugh, Rose waves him off. “Yeah, I guess they said handsome, probably about your age or, well, whatever age that body’s supposed to be. How old are you anyway?”

“I’m 903.”

“What, really?” 

He shrugs and can tell she’s trying to do the math in her hand, average body lifespan, the rate she knows, based on his file, he goes through them.

“Hell of an age gap,” she mutters, and before she can press it further, he’s turning back to the drawing of the building. 

gallifreyburning:

They sketch out a rough plan to get inside; the Doctor whips up the fake security badges they need, knowing that Rose will bluff her way past any checkpoints that require more than an ID scanner. The body farm is one of the more complex areas of the building, a sprawling silo-like area lined with clone-growing pods. At the very bottom, past at least two more layers of top-level security, is the machine itself.

“I call it a Paradox Machine,” the Doctor tells her.

“TARDIS, Paradox Machine, I’m starting to think you have a technology fetish, Doctor.” She rolls her eyes. “So once we get down there, you’ll reverse the machine, right the realities?”

“I’ll attach this handy little device to the machine.” He flourishes the ball of metal he’s been working on for years; it looks like a baseball-sized scribble, black wire folded in on itself over and over again. “Then we have to get to that floor that doesn’t exist, the second from the top, the one where you met the goatee-d bloke. That’s where the Paradox Machine’s activation switch will be.”

She plucks the scribble device from his hand, lifts it to her nose to smell it. “Eugh, smells like graphite.”

“That’s because it mostly is. Plus a few other slightly more volatile materials. It’s perfectly safe, as long as you don’t drop it. Or sneeze loudly near it.”

Eyes widening, Rose hands it back to him like it’s a live grenade. He tucks it into his pocket.

They materialize the TARDIS inside a broom closet, one Rose knows about because it’s close to the rewrite technicians’ break room. Navigating the bustling hallways of the Toclafane facility is easy enough, the Doctor clad in a workman’s jumper and Rose wearing her usual white lab coat. She keeps her head down and moves with casual purpose. She’s certain the security guards will know about her disappearing act the other day, but she’s equally as certain that no one else will have a clue. A renegade rewrite tech foiling the Toclafane system, that’s not something the top brass is going to trumpet to every employee. They’ll have kept the incident hush-hush; maybe a few rumors will have spread, but nothing more.

“Hi, Shareen,” Rose says, flashing a quick smile at the dark-haired woman. Shareen waves back, never even glancing at the Doctor, because it’s just par for the course to have the janitorial workers assisting rewrite techs. And right now, the Doctor is toting a bag that looks like it should be full of rewrite equipment, but is actually holding a small graphite-scented polarity-reversing gizmo, and lots and lots of padding.

“Have you had a run-in with the man behind Toclafane before?” she asks, as they step into an elevator all by themselves. She pushes the button for the basement level, and the elevator starts to move.

“I knew him a while back,” the Doctor replies, but anything else he intended to say is drowned out by the loud hissing from the wall-mounted decontamination system.

allrightfine:

~~~~~

Rose is almost certain — almost — that the Doctor would have thought to make at least some part of the bag waterproof, if not the entire thing. All the same, as the water bursts from the ceiling, her first instinct is to protect it. 

She turns into the Doctor, the bag is clutched in the hand that’s farthest away from her, and she twists to get at it, trying to shield it from the spray. 

The Doctor, apparently not expecting her to move so quickly, and distracted by the shower, startles, his arms pulling back on reflex. She balks, trying to change course, but it’s no use, the momentum she’d gone after the bag with is too much to combat. 

In a split second, she’s losing her footing, slipping on the floor where the water hasn’t soaked in yet, and tumbling hard, down, down, down. The Doctor reaches for her, forgetting about the bag, and in her haste to save it, she’s grabbing at his jumper, pulling him down with her. 

They land in a crash of limbs, Rose’s arse hitting hard on the ground, and, as the Doctor realizes the threat to the bag, he comes down on his free hand over her, their legs tangling together.

The Doctor yelps, shoving the bag off into the small, plastic-shielded cubby of the lift meant for medical supplies while keeping himself braced above her with his other hand. 

Finally, 45 seconds later, the water lets up.

“What the hell was th—”

Before the Doctor can finish, the dryer’s starting, strong currents of hot air ripping through the lift, starting at the top and moving down, ruffling first the Doctor’s hair, then her own before making the return trip.

There are sensors in here, she knows, meant to make sure no one can avoid a full decontamination and threaten the body farm, and they won’t have satisfied them, not down here on the floor. 

Wincing as she lifts her arm, and, oh, look at that, she must have knocked her elbow, too, she pushes a hand to the Doctor’s shoulder, forcing him to move. 

“It’s gonna go again,” she shouts, when he stands and she’s able to join him, pulling herself up with the help of his hand.

“What?” He can’t hear her over the roar of the dryer.

“Again!” she shouts, pointing at the ceiling. 

The Doctor’s eyes flick to the wall unit, the little light bulbs that indicate the system’s progress, and he watches as the middle light clicks off and, with it, the dryer.

“It didn’t get us,” she repeats. “It’s gonna start it again.”

The light switches to the bottom bulb and a puff of powder erupts from the walls, barely settling before the top light cycles on again. 

The nozzles in the ceiling open up once more, drenching them in a second shower and Rose can’t keep back her laugh. 

He looks at her wide-eyed for a moment and then joins in, the two of them laughing wildly as the water pours down around them. 

They both cut off abruptly as the water stops and the dryer begins again, making a riot of her hair and tousling the Doctor’s own. The powder follows close after, and then the lift is finally,finally opening.

The Doctor grabs the bag, and they make their way out the doors, and then down the long hallway leading toward second set leading to the body farm, when they’re spotted by a janitor Rose doesn’t recognize. 

“Hey!” the bloke calls to the Doctor, jogging to cut them off. “You’re not assigned down here.”

Rose straightens her lab coat and squares her shoulders, turning toward the man. “Yes, well, he’s with me.”

The janitor shakes his head. “Listen, I’m sorry, ma’am, but shifts on this level are monitored. He should know,” he points to the Doctor. “If they find out there were more than two of us down here — wait, why are you down here?”

Rose panics, flipping through a hundred possible excuses and discarding them all instantly before finally picking one at random. “Like I said, he’s with me.”

And with that, she grabs a fistful of the Doctor’s jumper, yanking him toward her and crashing their mouths together. She lets go of his jumper and buries both hands in his hair, tugging at the strands as her lips work against his own. 

The Doctor’s hands stay at his sides, one still clutching the bag, but his body follows the movements of hers, hips chasing after hers as she rocks with the force of the kiss. 

His mouth is just beginning to open, he’s finally beginning to reciprocate, when the janitor clears his throat.

Rose lets him go abruptly, smoothing her hands down her lab coat. “Right, well,” she says, trying to tamp down how flustered she feels. “I’ll just — I’ll go — there, on my own. And I’ll just meet you…later.”

She turns on her heels and marches through the second set of doors, unable to hear what the Doctor mumbles to the bloke behind her. 

gallifreyburning:

The Doctor catches up with her a few seconds later, his hair still a riot from her fingers, his expression still somewhat dazed. Rose is swiping her fake ID card through the next security panel, and the door in front of her is halfway open. The pristine white corridor behind them is nothing like what waits for them in the body farm ahead – dank concrete and green growth-lights, dozens of levels of people-filled pods.

The Doctor’s dazed expression fades, his mouth compressing into a thin line as he surveys the facility.

There’s movement in a few of the pods, hands pushing at unyielding glass, guttural noises coming from mouths that have never known language, burbling, wordless cries for help drifting through ventilation systems.

Rose feels nauseous. The Doctor’s hand finds hers.

“This isn’t the way things should be,” he whispers, almost as if he’s reminding himself. The intensity in his eyes is formidable to behold; Rose is glad she’s standing alongside this man, instead of in opposition to him.

“Let’s put it right, then,” Rose replies. She nods to a set of concrete steps set into the side of the nearest pod platform. “Those stairs look like they’re going the right direction.” With a tug, she sets off; the Doctor runs past her, his long legs taking the steps two at a time, duffel bag clutched carefully against his chest.

A dozen floors down, at the end of a row of pods, they find the door they’re looking for. No security pad, no security guard, just a massive slab of rusting steel and a big combination lock.

The Doctor hands Rose the duffel bag and reaches into his pocket and pulls out the sonic probe, the one he’s modified into a screwdriver. He frowns at it, then the door. “This would be quicker if I had a laser screwdriver,” he sighs. “Oh well.”

He flicks it on. The screwdriver buzzes and he begins to slowly turn the numbered combination lock, one ear pressed to the metal door.

Rose watches, the bag held against her stomach. She’s hardly had time to catch her breath, much less think, since her life turned into a madhouse, population Doctor. As she stares at his profile against the red-orange metal, she begins to wonder what exactly it is she’s doing – this bloke is a stranger. Sure he’s charismatic, and he’s made a strong case for his insane story about alternate realities, but any normal person would’ve laughed her way right out of the Doctor’s underground lair and back into her own proper flat, with her proper mum, a proper cup of tea. And … a proper personality rewrite would be mandatory at that point, of course.

She tips her head upward, stares at the rows of pods stacked into this basement silo, and wonders which of those bodies was meant for her. They’re only force-grown clones, of course, but standing here and watching them claw at their pods, she can’t pretend that they’re empty vessels.

She’s kept her eyes closed for too long. Even if he’s certifiably mad, Rose decides, however the Doctor plans to change the world, she has to be a part of it.

With a groan and a shower of rust flakes, like red snowfall, the door springs open. 

allrightfine:

Whatever she’s been expecting for a room that houses a machine that’s apparently altered the entire course of reality, it wasn’t this. 

The room in front of her is only a little bigger than the building’s standard utility closets, a large red cabinet taking up the space on the back wall. 

In Old Earth Park, they hold these movie screenings in the summer. They set up a screen, and a projector, and you can watch old films outside under the stars.

It’s free to go to, unlike most things anymore, and they’d become Mickey’s standard apology date. They were romantic at first, sitting in the back and snogging, but she’d grown tired of them at some point, fending off Mickey’s advances, and focusing on the movies instead. 

There’s one film in particular she remembers — Ghostbusters — and the space where they kept the ghosts they caught, the “containment unit,” it had looked just like this. Rainbow colored wires and tubes sprouting off the machine, and a panel in front that opened for deposits. 

Before Rose can ask the Doctor if he’s seen it, if he thinks the machines look alike, he’s setting the duffel bag on the ground and wrenching the panel door open by the handle. 

Inside the door, there’s a mess of wires and tubes, and the Doctor begins pulling at them until they spill from the machine’s mouth like spaghetti. 

“What are we looking for?” Rose asks, as the Doctor begins to parse through the wires with his fingers.

“A White-Point Star,” he says. “It’ll look like a diamond.”

Rose nods and joins him at the wires, their hands working together to separate sections. She can tell he’s beginning to get frustrated, looking back and forth at the machine as if he’s contemplating pulling out more wires, when she spots it. 

It’s set in an over-large casing, wires branching off at all angles, but it’s clear — this is a diamond. A White-Point Star.

“Doctor, here,” she cups the case in her palm, extending it to him.

“Oh, Rose Tyler, you are brilliant,” he says, and then turns back to the diamond. “And you —you are beautiful.”

Pulling his glasses from his jacket, he slips them on and begins working to free the star from its casing, using the sonic again at random intervals.

It takes a few minutes, long, quiet minutes she feels in every inch of her, slow minutes that count off in the beat of her heart, the din of the body farm outside. 

Finally he pries the star loose and hands it to her gently. “We’ll need that upstairs, it’s gonna help us override the activation protocols.”

Rose takes the diamond and stoops to the bag on the ground, carefully freeing the small ball of graphite from its padding. She replaces it with the White Point Star and holds the graphite while the Doctor works on the wires again, this time to strip them from the star’s protective shell.

When he’s done, he’s got a fistful of open-ended wires, and he nods at Rose’s hand, gesturing for the graphite ball.

She places it in his upturned palm, chewing on her lip as he begins attaching and re-attaching the wires to the scribble. 

Another few minutes and he lets out a breath. “That should do it,” he says, and begins tucking the wires back into the machine. 

When everything is back in place, he shuts the door to the machine. 

“Ready?” she asks. 

“I think so, let’s go.”

gallifreyburning:

~~~~~

He takes her hand again and they’re off, except not toward the body farm. Instead, the Doctor comes to a stop at a set of faded grey metal doors that blend so well with the wall, they might as well be camouflaged.

He starts buzzing at the seam with his sonic, trying to loosen the bond between the doors. If he’s right (and he’s always right, because he’s brilliant), these doors operate with pneumatic hinges, and they’ll pop right open as soon as the seal is broken.

“Elevator,” the Doctor says to Rose. “All of the official plans indicate the shaft ends on the ground floor, but whoever built that reality-altering machine would have also made a direct route from the power source down here to the control room upstairs.”

“‘Whoever built that machine,’” Rose echoes, crossing her arms and watching him work. He can feel her attention fixated on the back of his head, heat prickling across his shoulders. It doesn’t help that the janitorial uniform is thick cotton and doesn’t breathe at all. “You know who it is, though, don’t you? You haven’t said, you keep avoiding that bit when you talk about all this barmy wrong-reality stuff, but you know who built it.”

“The head of Toclafane, of course.”

“Harold Saxon,” Rose says.

“He prefers to be called the Master,” the Doctor replies. He stretches up to the top of the doors, sonic whirring away.

“And you know him.”

“Used to.”

He’s saved from having to elaborate when the doors make a popping noise and slide open. The Doctor expects to find a dark elevator shaft; instead he’s greeted with a brightly-lit elevator, complete with a soft jazz version of the Scissor Sisters’ “I Can’t Decide.”

“Oh,” he says, peering inside.

“That’s bad, is it?” Rose says, inspecting it with him.

“Possibly. Probably. We might be expected.” He grimaces, glancing at the ceiling of the elevator as though it might reveal the secret of what’s on the penultimate floor.

“It’d be rude to keep Harold Saxon – the Master – whatever he fancies calling himself – it’d be rude to keep him waiting,” Rose says, stepping into the elevator. She grabs the Doctor’s arm and pulls him in, too, just before the doors hiss closed behind them.

There is definitely a camera in the corner of this little metal box, the Doctor notices. It shifts into motion without warning, without either of them having touched any buttons, ascending at startling speed.

“We caught the express,” Rose mutters. “Anything else I need to know about this Master bloke before the elevator stops?”

“He’s a bit mad, but you already knew that. Implanting multiple identical bodies with his own personality, that sort of thing. And he’s probably very angry with us right now.”

“And he’s dangerous,” Rose says.

“Exceedingly.”

The elevator’s rapid ascent slows, stops, and the doors hiss open. Waiting for them is a man with blond hair and sharp features in a black suit. He tips his head sideways, studying the Doctor; he doesn’t even glance at Rose, as if she’s invisible.

“Hello, Doctor,” he says, drawing out the words. “Do you like the body I picked out for you this time around?”

In the Doctor’s peripheral vision, Rose’s head snaps around to stare at him, but he doesn’t acknowledge her, either. It would be a very bad thing if the Master realized how important Rose is to him, and not just in terms of the plan to infiltrate Toclafane.

The Doctor has known Rose less than a day, and already he’s thinking about all the adventures they’ll never have together, if this plan to re-set reality is successful.

They’ll never share chips. He’ll never get to show her the Northern Lights over an ice-field, or take her exploring through the ruins of Sydney. He’ll never know her middle name, or meet her mum, or find her socks in his own sock drawer because she put them there by mistake. She’s brave, and she’s brilliant, and he’s already mourning a future they’re never going to share, because they’re about to destroy it together.

“You didn’t have to roll out the red carpet,” the Doctor retorts to the Master, sliding his hands over his hips and into his pockets, rocking back on his heels with a forced casualness.

“Only the best for an old school bunk-mate,” the Master says, stepping aside and gesturing for them to get out of the elevator. “Especially one who’s been rooting around in my basement. You bypassed the primary and secondary safeguards, but you seem to have missed the tertiary backup. You’re getting sloppy.”

The Doctor slouches into the room, doing his best to look downcast. “Tertiary backup? You’ve gotten paranoid in your old age.”

“Tea’s ready in the next room, follow me,” the Master says, all collected calm. It’s a thin veneer, the Doctor knows, brittle and ready to crack at any moment. The Master glances at Rose, a sneer twisting his top lip. “Bring your pet, if you must. I can find a dog bowl for her, if she’s thirsty too.”

allrightfine:

Rose rolls her eyes and he grins at her in spite of their situation. She grins and back and leans into him with her upper body as they follow the Master down the hall.

“Sorry I didn’t believe you before,” she says quietly.

“What?”

“Well, just, this —” she gestures at the duffle bag in his hand, the Master up ahead of them. “— it’s all pretty elaborate if you’re just a nutter and this isn’t real.”

He smiles at her again, softer this time, sadder. “I’m sorry I dragged you into it.”

She takes a wide step around him, so the duffle bag is no longer dangling between them, and knits the fingers of his free hand with her own.

“I’m not,” she says with a squeeze.

“Oh, honestly, Doctor,” the Master drawls, pivoting on his heel to walk backward. “You and these virgin bodies.” The Master turns to Rose. “Not like that, love, not with yourbackground, it’s just, he picks all these…companions, never been through a re-write, all wide-eyed and willing to follow him, it’s disgusting, really.”

“‘Disgusting,’” Rose parrots. “That’s rich, coming from you.”

The Master sneers. “Didn’t see you complaining when your salary credits were deposited each week. It’s a shame you didn’t get that re-write after all, that mouth of yours could be put to better use in a more docile body.”

Before Rose can respond, the Master turns again, walking forward through the door into a posh-looking board room. 

Seated around the table are six clones of the Master’s current body. They’re all staring straight ahead, unmoving, and the Master seats himself at the head of the table, gesturing to empty chairs on either side of him for the Doctor and Rose.

It’s only when the Doctor takes a seat that the clone at his left begins speaking.

“Do you still take your tea the same way?” the clone asks, reaching for the teapot and a cup. 

Across the table, the clone next to Rose speaks. “No, wait, let me guess. Three sugars? Splash of milk?”

Farther down the table, another clone speaks. “How was it you took it in school again?”

Another clone answers. “Practically white.”

It’s like watching a ping-pong match and the Doctor feels his stomach twist. This isn’t just an executive team cloned to look like the Master, this is the Master as the executive team. He’s inhabiting every body, transferring his consciousness around at will.

The Master at the head of the table claps in delight, sneering at the Doctor. “Oh, good, you’ve figured it out. How about your little friend, do you think she’s gotten it yet?”

“I’d wager not,” the clone to Rose’s right says.

“Give her a minute,” a clone near the end of the table says. “You know how the public schools are these days.”

“All that money being funneled out into the private medical sector is really taking a toll,” another one says and the table laughs in chorus. 

Suddenly the Master at the head of the table stands, shoving the tea set off the table in a fit of violence. 

gallifreyburning:

Rose flinches, chair juddering against the floor as she shifts away. The Doctor wants to reach out, to hold her hand; he wants even more to get hold of that duffel and the White Point Star inside of it, because on the way into this board room, they passed a door that was emitting a low-pitched humming noise. Well, not the door exactly, but whatever was behind the door. It was the precise pitch he’d expect from a mechanical apparatus drawing power from the basement and fuelling a reality paradox.

The machine they’re after is literally on the other side of this wall. They’re so close, he can taste the paradox like ozone under his tongue.

The silent, steady countdown the Doctor’s been keeping up inside his head continues to tick toward zero.

Rose stares at the Master beside her, fists clenched at her stomach. “You’re mad.”

The Master on the other side of her whispers in a low voice, full of dark promise, “Mad, bad and dangerous to know. The Doctor and I go way back, he can give you all the intimate details. Can’t you, Doctor?”

As Rose turns to face this other Master, the Master who had originally tossed the teapot reaches out to stroke the hair back from her shoulder, his fingers tracing the line of her neck. The Doctor thought she was tense before, but at that touch Rose goes rigid as a board, shoulders hunched, face pale, as he strokes her earlobe.

“Mad, bad, and dangerous to know? Wasn’t that Byron?” the Doctor replies, his voice the model of indifference even as he’s gripping the arms of his chair to stop himself from lunging across the table. “I’ve read your poetry, Master. It’s rubbish. I’d say you’re more dotty, camp, and clichéd. A villain’s lair at the top of a tower where you conduct inhuman medical experiments? Forget Byron, you’re a creation worthy of Shelley. Might as well have called yourself Frankenstein instead of Saxon, and been done with it.”

The Master beside the Doctor turns a cold, murderous stare on him. But the clone stops stroking Rose’s earlobe, and she’s able to inch away from him, which is the only thing that matters. “I was going to make it quick for her – quick compared to what you’re going to go through, that is – but this little chat is inspiring me. I’m just abuzz with ideas for your little pet, and the ways you can watch her suffer.”

At that moment, the countdown in the Doctor’s head reaches zero.

The lights flicker once and cut out. The general hum of electricity in the building dies. The graphite ball has activated, killing the main power. The only sound left is a whirring from the room next door – the room housing the reality control mechanism.

The windows are heavily tinted but not blacked out completely, so the room is dim, and the Doctor can see clearly exactly what happens next. The Master lunges for the Doctor, hands out and aimed at his neck. Rose leaps up from her chair, right onto the table, hands still balled into fists as she scrambles away from the multiple, inert Masters on that side of the room. Teacups scatter in her wake. The Doctor kicks the table so that his own chair rocks backward and falls onto the floor; he tucks his knees in and rolls, twisting to the side, and he’s back on his feet within seconds.

“The room to the left!” he shouts to Rose, and she leaps from the conference table to the ground, on a trajectory toward the door.

The Master nearest the door snaps into action, but he’s closer to the Doctor than Rose. Snagged by the elbow, the Doctor goes down with the Master in a tangle of flailing limbs. Rose lets out a yell, half-startled and half-angry; the clone atop the Doctor has collapsed like a dropped marionette, while another clone at the table springs into action, leg darting out to trip Rose. When she hits the ground, her fist pops open, and the White Point Star bounces across the industrial carpet.

Of course Rose was clever enough to get it out of the bag without the Master noticing – the Doctor shouldn’t be surprised, but he is. Surprised and delighted, even as he’s wrestling the dead weight of an unoccupied Master clone off of himself to help her.

The Master grabs a fistful of Rose’s hair and hauls her backward, so she’s on her knees. Before the Doctor can scramble to his feet, she’s already twisted back and jammed her elbow between the Master’s legs. That clone goes down with a breathless cry, crumpling in on himself, before the Master can switch his consciousness to another body. He’s momentarily paralyzed with pain – both physically and psychically.

The Doctor grabs the White Point Star and Rose’s hand at the same time, and they dash through the conference room door. The corridor is much darker, the only light provided by a blue glow beneath the door of the room immediately on their left.

“Stand back,” the Doctor says, letting go of Rose and throwing his full weight against it with his shoulder.

The door doesn’t budge. The Doctor moans in pain, clutching his bruised collarbone and gearing up for another go.

“Bugger,” Rose sighs, easing him out of the way and lifting her foot to waist level. She aims true, her heel landing just above the doorknob, and the doorframe gives way. The door swings open.

The room beyond is much like the one in the basement – small, snaked with wires, humming with unnatural power. Cradled in the center of the mechanism is a second White Point Star.

“A quick switch, and we’re in business,” the Doctor says, almost to himself, the White Point Star from the basement cradled in his palm.

The elevator door dings open, and two separate sets of footsteps thunder down the corridor from opposite directions – the Master from the conference room, and a troop of security personnel from the elevator.

“Stop them!” the Master roars. Almost simultaneously, he tackles the Doctor, ramming into him like a compact blond freight train. The Doctor’s head bounces off of the floor so hard, he blacks out.

~~~~~

Rose sees the Doctor go down, watches his face go slack when his skull hits the thin carpet and the concrete underneath. The Master – there’s only one, now, the rest of his clones apparently abandoned in the conference room – immediately draws back a fist and pounds it into the Doctor’s cheek. His head snaps sideways at the impact, but otherwise he’s unresponsive.

Panic tearing at her intestines, coursing up and down her spine, Rose resists her first impulse to run to the Doctor’s side. She has to help him, and the best way to do that right now is to grab the White Point Star from where it’s landed, at her feet. She turns to the machine, hauling wires out of the way with one hand as she pushes the crystal inside with the other. The second White Point Star is in the same spot as it was downstairs, and she just has enough time to flick it out of the way and put its twin in the machine, instead.

Rose is hauled backward and shoved downward. She’s face-down on the floor, a security guard’s knee planted squarely between her shoulder blades and tears of pain in her eyes, when the reality machine’s hum grows louder. Soon it’s even louder than the Master’s incensed shouting, and the sound of him tearing wires out of the machine to stop it from reversing.

Cheek throbbing against the floor, the rough carpet digging into her jaw, she blinks the tears from her eyes. The Doctor is lying within arm’s reach, his face turned in her direction. He still looks unconscious; she reaches out to touch him, but the security guard catches her hand and pins it behind her back.

The Doctor’s eyes flutter open, slowly focus on her face.

The hum is deafening, the concrete beneath her body vibrating in time with the sound; the universe is vibrating with it. The building is going to shake itself apart; Rose’s atoms feel like they’re spinning backward, pulling at each other in impossible ways, dissolving.

“I love you,” Rose says to the Doctor, not even certain if she’s saying it aloud, only knowing that her mouth is moving because of the way the carpet scratches her lips.

Never looking away from her, the Doctor sucks in a breath, shudders in pain, and mouths, “Rose Tyler, I –”

The vibrating hum crescendos, and there isn’t any pain, just a tugging sensation and then Rose splits into an infinite number of subatomic particles. It’s an boundless amount of time and no time at all, countless Rose Tylers and Doctors in a never-ending number of realities, all of them forming and coalescing at once.

The old reality — the one that was never meant to be — is gone.

Nothing is the same.

allrightfine:

Rose wakes with a start to the feeling of falling. Her head bobs unstably where it’s slipped from her hand, and her eyes focus on the table in front of her as she tries to orient herself.

There’s the din of light conversation behind her, the buzz of a microwave, people gossiping, eating, living. 

Across from her, Shireen laughs, and Rose remembers sitting down to “dinner” in the break room, remembers telling Shireen she felt tired, that she was going to close her eyes for a moment. 

Which means she just saw Shireen, but somehow, now, looking at Shireen’s dark hair and dark skin, she feels like she hasn’t seen Shireen like this in ages. She’s got a vague impression of Shireen as a different person entirely, with lighter hair and a taller body, a slightly different personality, 

That’s crazy, of course — Shireen has always looked like the woman in front of her, maybe with a few more spots back in school, but definitely mostly the same.

But she can’t shake the feeling that she knew Shireen when she was different. 

And she can’t shake the feeling that she needs to go to the basement. 

“Come on, Rose, break’s over, back to work,” Shireen says, and Rose rubs at her eyes. 

Right, right, work. Work at Henrik’s, where she folds shirts all bloody day, where she’s bored out of her mind — and, ugh, seriously, what is with this impulse to go to the basement? 

She unfolds herself from the break room chair, packing up her mostly uneaten dinner, and dutifully trooping out on to the sales floor. 

Her dad’s supposed to come in today, in need of an anniversary present for her mum, and she can’t think why that thought should make her so happy, why she’s so elated at the thought of seeing her dad.

She should be angry, at him, in fact. It’s his fault she’s here in the first place, learning “the value of a hard day’s work,” before taking her rightful place as a Tyler at Vitex. 

But she is — she’s excited, really, properly thrilled at the prospect of seeing her dad, the sort of excitement that takes over her whole brain, except for that tiny, niggling impulse whispering, the basement, the basement, the basement. 

Two hours later and she’s surreptitiously checking her mobile, a text from her dad apologizing that he won’t be able to stop in today, and now she’s happy and sad at the same time. 

And still, the basement, the basement, the basement.

It takes another 45 minutes, until the store’s closing, that she finally gives in, volunteering to take the lottery money down just to shut that bloody voice up. Somehow she knows she won’t be able to sleep tonight if she doesn’t relent. 

The lift ride down is soundtracked by a muzak version of the Ghostbuster’s theme. It feels like that should be significant, like it’s trying to remind her of something. But the only memories she has of Ghostbusters are Mickey taking her to the bargain cinema years ago, and him missing half the movie playing in the theatre arcade.

When she steps off the lift, there’s an army of store dummies, all stripped down and waiting for repair except one wearing a lab coat.

She shifts closer to it, pinpricks ghosting the back of her neck and peers at the coat. “Toclafane Medical,” it says, and that, too, seems familiar. 

In fact, as she walks farther into the basement, everything seems familiar, and her mind is running, tripping, unfurling, remembering. 

There’s a small silver tube — sonic screwdriver, her brain supplies — lying on the ground.

There’s a postcard from Hawaii with a picture of the Keck Observatory.

There’s a long brown coat and a leather jacket, four different jars of jam and a lukewarm cone of chips. 

It’s all arranged on the ground in a line, leading her forward, leading her down and around a corner and —

Oh god. 

Oh god.

The Paradox Machine.

The Doctor.

The wrong reality and the right one and pillowcases and body swapping and re-writes and love.

She’s moving faster now, running, running, running, taking the corner as fast as she can, laughing in delight when it reveals the TARDIS at the end of the next hall.

“Doctor, Doctor!” she’s shouting now, laughing, full of delight and confusion and oh my god, they did it, they really did it. 

She skitters to a stop in front of the blue doors, fist raised and poised to knock. 

What does it mean though? If everything’s where it’s supposed to be? Is the Doctor the man she met first, with the ears and the nose and the blue eyes? 

Or is “right” for the Doctor the other body, the one with the great brown hair and the eyes to match?

Before she can knock, the doors to the TARDIS swing open and the Doctor’s standing in front of her.

“Rose Tyler,” he says, and she recognizes his smile.


End file.
